The Chris Moeller Archives

Bidder pill for (Cubs) fans

Thank heavens this time around for the "good ole' boy" network in Major League Baseball.

Cubs-haters in the National League Central Division breathed a sigh of relief on Friday when the Chicago Sun-Times, under a headline so terrific I stole it for myself, reported that billionaire sportsman Mark Cuban now has "zero chance" of purchasing the division's Chicago franchise.

"Sportsman" is a marvelous term that has often been used to describe a certain type of individual that's become terribly endangered in the ownership ranks of professional sports. The owners' boxes in Major League Baseball stadiums used to be populated by lively, ultra-competitive "sportsmen" the likes of master promoter Bill Veeck, America's Cup yachtsman Ted Turner, horseman and beerman Gussie Busch, and APBA board game afficionado and beerman George W. Bush.

Mark Cuban, entrepreneur, blogger, and owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, has been cut from the same cloth as these other gentlemen (or at least the first three), and it made perfect sense for him to buy the popular, profitable Cubs. During the current global credit crunch, he was likely the only bidder that could purchase the franchise outright. He's popular with sports fans everywhere, and he had certainly become the consensus pick of all of 'Cub-dom' (which is not to be confused with 'Cub-dumb').

But Cuban is also consequently outside the mold of the bean-counting corporate drone, the current favored executive model of the baseball lords. The colorful, competitive, and aggressive Cuban, as the Sun-Times referenced, would have no doubt spent many of his summer afternoons as owner of the Cubs sitting in the Wrigley Field bleachers among the proletariat actually enjoying the games. And, of course, the biggest rub they have against him is that he would probably spend an unacceptable percentage of the franchise's profits on the services of competent baseball players. So now, before approving a transfer, the league's team ownership cartel will wait as long as it has to (at one point during the 1990's, it took them six years to name a commissioner) to allow Bud Selig's BFF, John Canning Jr., to secure the credit he'll need to buy the historic ballclub.

As a loyalist of the rival Cardinals, I say "Hooray!" to this news development. Having Cuban own the Cubs, what with his perverse emphasis on building winners over building profits, was among my most-frequent nightmares (along with the recurring, menacing images connected to Albert Pujols having to step out of a wet, slippery shower once or twice each day of his life). Make no mistake, the recent spending spree by the Cubs has not been a harbinger of a new long-term competitive strategy. A sale to Canning's lesser-funded group of partners will insure that. It was only a temporary increase to likewise boost the financial value of the franchise prior to sale. Upon completion of the transfer, the moderately-successful current era of Cubs baseball will shortly be finished and can begin its fade into the sport's history books, hopefully yet without their claiming the long-elusive World Championship. The Cardinals and the other NL Central clubs can then return to sharing the cul-de-sac with the erstwhile Windy City punching bags of yore.

posted by CM @ 9:21 AM